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Product Details

Synopsis

Game Overview From the creators of Halo, comes an epic, new, action adventure world set in a mysterious future. Create a unique and powerful character, customize the way you look and fight, and take up arms to reclaim what humanity has lost. Featuring an epic storyline, cooperative gameplay choices, wide open public combat arenas, and action-packed multiplayer, Destiny challenges players to rise to new heights, explore the solar system, and Become Legend. Story Welcome to the Frontier Our civilization once spanned the solar system. Its ruins are still out there buried in the dunes of Mars, hidden in the jungles of Venus, lost in a wild and abandoned Earth. For centuries we've huddled under the safety of the Traveler, protected from our enemies. Now, a new era has begun, and the only hope for our future lies in unlocking the greatest mysteries of our past. Defend the last safe City on Earth. Defeat our enemies. Explore the ancient ruins of our solar system. Discover all that we have lost. Become legend.

Mentioned In Reviews

pros

cons

Destiny: A Glimpse Into The Future

September 13, 2014

I've been waiting to put up my review of Destiny since I wanted to get some quality time with it, being online centric and all. Got up to about Level 20 and went through every planet, so what did I think?
The game is solid. It's not great, but not that bad either. The plus side to all of this is having Bungie behind the helm. A great developer can make the best out of any bad situation and I feel like that's how Destiny is. A really solid, fluid game with just not a lot of content.
Missions on Planets can get very repetitive, but the looting and content brings an added attraction to running through those. When you're sick of the main storyline you can head online and visit what I consider a next gen Halo-style gameplay.
The game is fun with friends, okay by yourself (matchmaking is smooth as ever, a given from Bungie) but I just don't think there's enough content. Right now.
They plan on doing community style missions and raids during the weekends and obviously there's a ton of content on the way, so on that alone I would definitely consider this game a buy and not just a rental. It gives you an early taste of what a lot of MP centric games will look and play like in the future.
It's not amazing, but it has it's moments. Lots of them. And they're usually with friends which makes it that much more fun.
A solid 4/5

Destiny Ups the Ante and Wins

August 4, 2014

Here are some of my observations of positive aspects as mentioned above:
The gameplay is smooth between all actions. A primary first person shooter with a third person in the Tower City and vehicles, you are able to dial in your preferred playing style. Special abilities for each Guardian class, of which there are three, allow you to really change your play style. As a Warlock I was equally comfortable using a Sniper Rifle and charging with a Shotgun. The ability to upgrade weapons and customize class abilities really enhances this style of play.
The visuals are impressive in a few key ways. The texturing is very realistic looking at moderate distance and only become visibly rendered up close, specifically things like texture on brick or concrete. The lighting is fantastic, especially in tandem with weather. There is a layer of fog that sits just outside of the Tower that will change naturally over time changing the view of the surrounding landscape. Even more impressive is the sunrise; the cloud cover will change how much light is displayed. Shafts of lights, known as sunshafts, are prevalent both in Tower and in Old Russia. The waterfalls in Old Russia create rainbows when viewed from the proper angle. Combat visuals highlight with weapon effects and class abilities. See the screen capture I took that shows 3rd person view.
The story is exciting as you learn about the past and how it has shaped the current conflict in Destiny. The story primarily follows you on your characters story arc while integrating aspects of the city where you recharge, Tower.
The music is the first thing that you hear upon launching the game and all the updates installing. It is of the same feeling you get if you ever played an epic game where the music set the stage for very high expectations and excitement. The game, even in beta, delivers on these expectations.
The community is large, with just under 900,000 players participating in the beta. This should translate well for launch. There should be plenty of people available for matchmaking unless you grind levels too quickly.
The multiplayer aspect of the game is interesting. A combination of many successful elements from first person shooters is mixed with some MMO-style mechanics which offers some fun gameplay. The world events are fun though if some are designed to be done by at least two players. The world events on the moon I found to be very difficult but manageable for those with a grasp on mechanics. Strikes are the 3-man teams which can be queued for directly in-game by selecting it. It will pair you with other players and you must take out progressive waves of enemies until you take on a boss or two. The waves can be easily destroyed by skilled solo players but often the carelessness of players in these strikes makes having 3 beneficial. You can be revived in moments by your teammates so the frustration curve is not horrible if you die.
The mobile app is a great feature that really increases the excitement with the game. You can check your character, see what is in your inventory and browse many other features. It is a nice way to see where you are at and plan out what you would like to do if your time to play is limited. It is easy to give a couple minutes to check your current state while not being at your console. See the captures of the app.
Here are some of my observations of negative aspects as mentioned above:
The load times that are experience are not horrible, but they are noticeable. I would estimate that 5% of my gameplay was load time. Obviously load times will be less of an issue of you are exploring, for example the exploration in Old Russia. However, if you run strikes and Crucibles frequently, you will have some load time at the start and end. Then if you rejoin it is additional time. This is unavoidable and is really just something that gives you time to be productive in something else for a minute or two.
The game can feel “grindy" at times. What this means is that you must continually do the same actions over and over again to obtain the resources that you need to obtain more desirable items. This is especially true if you are trying to get a bunch of glimmer for example which is a primary currency. You can mitigate some of this by using items that you find to increase the collection rate. That being said, the Crucibles already seem grindy especially if you are not playing with friends and just randomly join.
The crucible player skill seems to vary greatly. There are some very skilled players mixed with average and novices. There is also the occasional AFK player that frustrates all. As the game matures there will likely be a solid matchmaking system that pairs you with similar skill players. Otherwise, you get beaten fairly easily or beat the other team easily.
Overall Destiny upped the ante with features and gameplay and it works, and Destiny wins. I recommend this to anyone who wants a good story with reasonable multiplayer aspects. Not to mention it is a fun shooter at its core.
September 9, 2014 is release date with a very likely saturated weekend on September 13, 2014. I hope to see you all in game.
- Ryan the OC

On Second Thought

October 7, 2014

The game lacks depth/story, not as much content as Halo CE or Reach. Very pretty with good game mechanics. The game appears to cut into thirds; why sell you the whole game for $60 when Activision can milk another $40+ out of you? I haven't had a weekend yet where I wasn't booted to orbit or just plain dropped at least once a day. Sometimes the servers go down for a couple of hours. Bungie likes to blame some hacker group for down servers but if their going to push an online only game then its on them to insure their servers are stable. Why would anybody buy the expansions when Bungie can't get the base game working correctly? I can't justify giving only two stars but the game doesn't quite warrant three.

Not a huge fan

September 23, 2014

Storyline is not that exciting. The game is definitely a multiplayer experience. It's fun with a group of friends, and a grind without. The developers say the real game starts after you hit level 20 but after that you are just doing raids and strikes to grind for better gear. Leading up to release I was almost expecting a Borderlands style game with a lot of loot to collect and trade. Loot is actually a little rare in the game. Some areas of the maps feel empty and lifeless. You can't trade items. When you are walking around you can't communicate with others as there is no text chat. You can use a mic if the people are in your party. Overall it's just a game I don't feel like grinding away it. Others find it awesome. I'm not seeing it.

Nothing Special

September 18, 2014

Basic shooter, just point and shoot. No strategy or problem solving involved. Just point and shoot, kill everything and you clear levels.
Skill and weapon upgrade system is very basic and simple.
Just another basic shooter.

Very dissapointed

September 15, 2014

What was all the hype about? I beat the game in about 20 hours of gameplay and didn't even realize it due to it's extremely poor storyline. The multiplayer is lacking many typical multiplayer elements and is very repetitive and boring. The storyline levels are capped and do not increase so, you're stuck with the level they start out with. This causes a very poor replay value due to the fact that your character levels up but the game levels do not. There are items that you collect through the game that have no value and you cannot do anything with them but drop them. I think this is the worst game so far for the new gen consoles. The only positives are it's smooth and clean graphics.

Decent, but not great

October 7, 2014

NOTE: for some reason Best Buy has turned my parantheses into pound signs; I can't seem to get around it
First of all, the fundamentals of this game are very well made. The shooter mechanics and the visual and aural production values are excellent. However, everything is not tied together very well.
The story comes off as kind of cheesy. The writing just isn't good enough to sell it. I guess Bungie was going for a Sci-Fi adventure where everything is so futuristic and/or alien, that things fall into the realm of fantasy, which is perfectly fine, but the writing didn't sell it well enough. It wasn't believable.
Now as for the gameplay, for the most part, it reminds me of what I don't like about MMO's, and it lacks the community/communication aspect that would make an MMO more engaging.
The missions are repetitive (and as is the nature of an MMO/persistent character building game#, you don't change weapons, gear and ability as part of a level designers vision of how you're going to be challenged throughout the game, instead, you keep the same weapons #or types of weapons# for long periods and you use them because that's what you have, and you swap them based on what you randomly find.
So #generally speaking# enemy encounters really can't be tailored with any particular challenge in mind. It's just a bunch of random shooting at stuff. It gets tiring to be honest.
I plan on completing the single player game and continuing to play as new content comes out, but I'm not really going to put effort into finding the best gear and what not, because it doesn't really allow me to do anything other than fight other enemies that are simply stronger but otherwise the same as older enemies I've already fought.
Now at this point, I should say that this type of game probably does appeal to a bunch of people out there. There is stuff to find, gear to upgrade, skills to level, and adventures to be made of your own volition. It's just that that really has to come from your own motivation and mentality. I don't think the game itself provides enough motivation to see it through if you're not already drawn to this kind of gaming.
Now that said, I did end up enjoying the multiplayer a lot more, but it is sort of an odd experience as well. The gear and abilities you earn in single player carry over to multiplayer. So it kind of sucks when you're level 7 and and some other players are like level 24 and almost literally flying around the map with magic powers that can kill players in an instant and have weapons and other special abilities that other players just don't have access to.
It kind of works itself out once you also grind the game and level up, and then you too can match them, but still it's a weird choice, and I can see a lot of players getting frustrated and abandoning the multiplayer if they try it too early.
I may have played multiplayer too much as I got to level 20 before I was even 1/3 of the way through the single player game. So that sort of might explain my earlier criticisms about the single player game. Now that I'm maxed at level 20 #you can't level up further unless you find special gear#, fighting enemies in the missions seems like a "waste" and many of the enemies aren't challenging anyway because now I have armor and weapons that outmatch them. Thus, I'm just running through, trying to complete the #unfortunately# uninteresting story.
I really don't know; maybe it will get a lot better later. I heard that the raid is pretty good, as it actually takes planning, puzzle solving, etc, but I'm not going to organize six friends outside of the game and practice for hours to do it. It's a shame they didn't have more interesting content like that in the single player.
It's kind of sad because for the most part, outside of the writing, it's a well made game. It just so happens that it's not very fun. Or perhaps it's just not for me. Maybe the game is what it needs to be. After all, I simply have never found an MMO to be fun, but lots of people enjoy them, so maybe it's just that Destiny is not for a gamer like me.

Destiny: A Glimpse Into The Future
Posted by: ryko4887 from: United States on I've been waiting to put up my review of Destiny since I wanted to get some quality time with it, being online centric and all. Got up to about Level 20 and went through every planet, so what did I think?
The game is solid. It's not great, but not that bad either. The plus side to all of this is having Bungie behind the helm. A great developer can make the best out of any bad situation and I feel like that's how Destiny is. A really solid, fluid game with just not a lot of content.
Missions on Planets can get very repetitive, but the looting and content brings an added attraction to running through those. When you're sick of the main storyline you can head online and visit what I consider a next gen Halo-style gameplay.
The game is fun with friends, okay by yourself (matchmaking is smooth as ever, a given from Bungie) but I just don't think there's enough content. Right now.
They plan on doing community style missions and raids during the weekends and obviously there's a ton of content on the way, so on that alone I would definitely consider this game a buy and not just a rental. It gives you an early taste of what a lot of MP centric games will look and play like in the future.
It's not amazing, but it has it's moments. Lots of them. And they're usually with friends which makes it that much more fun.
A solid 4/5

38 out of 39 found this review helpful.

5

Destiny Ups the Ante and Wins
Posted by: ryantheoc from: West Linn, OR on Here are some of my observations of positive aspects as mentioned above:
The gameplay is smooth between all actions. A primary first person shooter with a third person in the Tower City and vehicles, you are able to dial in your preferred playing style. Special abilities for each Guardian class, of which there are three, allow you to really change your play style. As a Warlock I was equally comfortable using a Sniper Rifle and charging with a Shotgun. The ability to upgrade weapons and customize class abilities really enhances this style of play.
The visuals are impressive in a few key ways. The texturing is very realistic looking at moderate distance and only become visibly rendered up close, specifically things like texture on brick or concrete. The lighting is fantastic, especially in tandem with weather. There is a layer of fog that sits just outside of the Tower that will change naturally over time changing the view of the surrounding landscape. Even more impressive is the sunrise; the cloud cover will change how much light is displayed. Shafts of lights, known as sunshafts, are prevalent both in Tower and in Old Russia. The waterfalls in Old Russia create rainbows when viewed from the proper angle. Combat visuals highlight with weapon effects and class abilities. See the screen capture I took that shows 3rd person view.
The story is exciting as you learn about the past and how it has shaped the current conflict in Destiny. The story primarily follows you on your characters story arc while integrating aspects of the city where you recharge, Tower.
The music is the first thing that you hear upon launching the game and all the updates installing. It is of the same feeling you get if you ever played an epic game where the music set the stage for very high expectations and excitement. The game, even in beta, delivers on these expectations.
The community is large, with just under 900,000 players participating in the beta. This should translate well for launch. There should be plenty of people available for matchmaking unless you grind levels too quickly.
The multiplayer aspect of the game is interesting. A combination of many successful elements from first person shooters is mixed with some MMO-style mechanics which offers some fun gameplay. The world events are fun though if some are designed to be done by at least two players. The world events on the moon I found to be very difficult but manageable for those with a grasp on mechanics. Strikes are the 3-man teams which can be queued for directly in-game by selecting it. It will pair you with other players and you must take out progressive waves of enemies until you take on a boss or two. The waves can be easily destroyed by skilled solo players but often the carelessness of players in these strikes makes having 3 beneficial. You can be revived in moments by your teammates so the frustration curve is not horrible if you die.
The mobile app is a great feature that really increases the excitement with the game. You can check your character, see what is in your inventory and browse many other features. It is a nice way to see where you are at and plan out what you would like to do if your time to play is limited. It is easy to give a couple minutes to check your current state while not being at your console. See the captures of the app.
Here are some of my observations of negative aspects as mentioned above:
The load times that are experience are not horrible, but they are noticeable. I would estimate that 5% of my gameplay was load time. Obviously load times will be less of an issue of you are exploring, for example the exploration in Old Russia. However, if you run strikes and Crucibles frequently, you will have some load time at the start and end. Then if you rejoin it is additional time. This is unavoidable and is really just something that gives you time to be productive in something else for a minute or two.
The game can feel “grindy" at times. What this means is that you must continually do the same actions over and over again to obtain the resources that you need to obtain more desirable items. This is especially true if you are trying to get a bunch of glimmer for example which is a primary currency. You can mitigate some of this by using items that you find to increase the collection rate. That being said, the Crucibles already seem grindy especially if you are not playing with friends and just randomly join.
The crucible player skill seems to vary greatly. There are some very skilled players mixed with average and novices. There is also the occasional AFK player that frustrates all. As the game matures there will likely be a solid matchmaking system that pairs you with similar skill players. Otherwise, you get beaten fairly easily or beat the other team easily.
Overall Destiny upped the ante with features and gameplay and it works, and Destiny wins. I recommend this to anyone who wants a good story with reasonable multiplayer aspects. Not to mention it is a fun shooter at its core.
September 9, 2014 is release date with a very likely saturated weekend on September 13, 2014. I hope to see you all in game.
- Ryan the OC

35 out of 53 found this review helpful.

2

Very dissapointed
Posted by: AINLV from: Nevada on What was all the hype about? I beat the game in about 20 hours of gameplay and didn't even realize it due to it's extremely poor storyline. The multiplayer is lacking many typical multiplayer elements and is very repetitive and boring. The storyline levels are capped and do not increase so, you're stuck with the level they start out with. This causes a very poor replay value due to the fact that your character levels up but the game levels do not. There are items that you collect through the game that have no value and you cannot do anything with them but drop them. I think this is the worst game so far for the new gen consoles. The only positives are it's smooth and clean graphics.

4 out of 4 found this review helpful.

2

Nothing Special
Posted by: mbkid88 from: Los Angeles, CA on Basic shooter, just point and shoot. No strategy or problem solving involved. Just point and shoot, kill everything and you clear levels.
Skill and weapon upgrade system is very basic and simple.
Just another basic shooter.

4 out of 4 found this review helpful.

3

On Second Thought
Posted by: Sean from: on The game lacks depth/story, not as much content as Halo CE or Reach. Very pretty with good game mechanics. The game appears to cut into thirds; why sell you the whole game for $60 when Activision can milk another $40+ out of you? I haven't had a weekend yet where I wasn't booted to orbit or just plain dropped at least once a day. Sometimes the servers go down for a couple of hours. Bungie likes to blame some hacker group for down servers but if their going to push an online only game then its on them to insure their servers are stable. Why would anybody buy the expansions when Bungie can't get the base game working correctly? I can't justify giving only two stars but the game doesn't quite warrant three.

4 out of 4 found this review helpful.

3

Not a huge fan
Posted by: Matt from: PA on Storyline is not that exciting. The game is definitely a multiplayer experience. It's fun with a group of friends, and a grind without. The developers say the real game starts after you hit level 20 but after that you are just doing raids and strikes to grind for better gear. Leading up to release I was almost expecting a Borderlands style game with a lot of loot to collect and trade. Loot is actually a little rare in the game. Some areas of the maps feel empty and lifeless. You can't trade items. When you are walking around you can't communicate with others as there is no text chat. You can use a mic if the people are in your party. Overall it's just a game I don't feel like grinding away it. Others find it awesome. I'm not seeing it.

4 out of 4 found this review helpful.

3

Decent, but not great
Posted by: olanmills from: on NOTE: for some reason Best Buy has turned my parantheses into pound signs; I can't seem to get around it
First of all, the fundamentals of this game are very well made. The shooter mechanics and the visual and aural production values are excellent. However, everything is not tied together very well.
The story comes off as kind of cheesy. The writing just isn't good enough to sell it. I guess Bungie was going for a Sci-Fi adventure where everything is so futuristic and/or alien, that things fall into the realm of fantasy, which is perfectly fine, but the writing didn't sell it well enough. It wasn't believable.
Now as for the gameplay, for the most part, it reminds me of what I don't like about MMO's, and it lacks the community/communication aspect that would make an MMO more engaging.
The missions are repetitive (and as is the nature of an MMO/persistent character building game#, you don't change weapons, gear and ability as part of a level designers vision of how you're going to be challenged throughout the game, instead, you keep the same weapons #or types of weapons# for long periods and you use them because that's what you have, and you swap them based on what you randomly find.
So #generally speaking# enemy encounters really can't be tailored with any particular challenge in mind. It's just a bunch of random shooting at stuff. It gets tiring to be honest.
I plan on completing the single player game and continuing to play as new content comes out, but I'm not really going to put effort into finding the best gear and what not, because it doesn't really allow me to do anything other than fight other enemies that are simply stronger but otherwise the same as older enemies I've already fought.
Now at this point, I should say that this type of game probably does appeal to a bunch of people out there. There is stuff to find, gear to upgrade, skills to level, and adventures to be made of your own volition. It's just that that really has to come from your own motivation and mentality. I don't think the game itself provides enough motivation to see it through if you're not already drawn to this kind of gaming.
Now that said, I did end up enjoying the multiplayer a lot more, but it is sort of an odd experience as well. The gear and abilities you earn in single player carry over to multiplayer. So it kind of sucks when you're level 7 and and some other players are like level 24 and almost literally flying around the map with magic powers that can kill players in an instant and have weapons and other special abilities that other players just don't have access to.
It kind of works itself out once you also grind the game and level up, and then you too can match them, but still it's a weird choice, and I can see a lot of players getting frustrated and abandoning the multiplayer if they try it too early.
I may have played multiplayer too much as I got to level 20 before I was even 1/3 of the way through the single player game. So that sort of might explain my earlier criticisms about the single player game. Now that I'm maxed at level 20 #you can't level up further unless you find special gear#, fighting enemies in the missions seems like a "waste" and many of the enemies aren't challenging anyway because now I have armor and weapons that outmatch them. Thus, I'm just running through, trying to complete the #unfortunately# uninteresting story.
I really don't know; maybe it will get a lot better later. I heard that the raid is pretty good, as it actually takes planning, puzzle solving, etc, but I'm not going to organize six friends outside of the game and practice for hours to do it. It's a shame they didn't have more interesting content like that in the single player.
It's kind of sad because for the most part, outside of the writing, it's a well made game. It just so happens that it's not very fun. Or perhaps it's just not for me. Maybe the game is what it needs to be. After all, I simply have never found an MMO to be fun, but lots of people enjoy them, so maybe it's just that Destiny is not for a gamer like me.

3 out of 3 found this review helpful.

1

DO NOT buy this game if you are independent
Posted by: ArmyVet from: Las Vegas on I hate this game. I have never hated a game as much as I hate this one. I wish I could sue every person who told me this would be the next generation of online shooter games. Unless you have a (already established) gaming group that all plays the game with you on the same system, you will hate this game too. I am an independent gamer, I don't like group work and there is no place in this game for independent gamers. To accomplish anything after level 20 the game forces you to beg other people for help. You can not complete significant missions by yourself and the most recent update has made the game even worse for independent players.

4 out of 5 found this review helpful.

2

High Expectations Were Not Met by Bungie
Posted by: gfense from: Williamsport, PA on Destiny will immediately give you a Halo nostalgia rush, but it contains none of the Halo personality. This world is cold, and doesn't make you care.
Missions consist of finding a computer terminal, inserting your Ghost, and fighting off a few waves of enemies, followed by a slightly larger enemy. Nearly every mission is as boring as I described it.
The story is nearly non-existent, and it might as well not be there because it doesn't draw you in in any way. The Grimoire cards fill out the story more, but why do I have to go to Bungie's website to learn more backstory? It's too late, I don't care.
While the loot system and weapon variety is pretty boring, the mechanics of the game are pretty decent. I'd describe it as 85% Halo, 10% CoD, and 5% Borderlands. This is the only redeeming quality that I can see.
I made it to level 18 and beat the last "boss" as of this review, and have limited experience with Strikes and other end game content, but I shouldn't have to play a game for more than 20 hours to actually enjoy it. I'd stay away from this one, at least until it drops to $20 or less.

4 out of 5 found this review helpful.

1

Bad news
Posted by: JonnyDaBaker from: on Although the much awaited Destiny has been released, it is unfortunate that the game (for me at least) was a complete waste of time! I waited in line for the midnight release like many, for three hours only to find out that in three days I would beat the game. Overall the graphics are amazing, story telling is mildly decent, and the game play is straight forward; but for me I was expecting something with more replay value of which this game does not. It boggles the mind to me on how long the game took to be produced, versus how much content the game had to offer. It's a bad game and although it maybe a good arcade game it definitely doesn't have the right to be called a major platformer like Bungie's original Halo games and Rockstar's GTA